


Horizon

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Eowyn is happy!, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Healing, Post-Canon, Tolkien Secret Santa 2019, good for her!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: The plants are looking at them and sayingwe live for days: you may not live forever, but what's the difference?
Relationships: Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2019





	Horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_girl_that_time_forgot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_girl_that_time_forgot/gifts).



The sun rises hot in Emyn Arnen; Eowyn sees it come over the horizon and flood the hills with bright orange light. The cobblestones flare up and then fade down into a pale pink. She used to see the city as colorless and dull, but now it just seems like a gentle daydream. Everything is full of life and it’s starting to seep into her, too. She stands on her balcony and spreads her arms wide and twirls, just because she can. Her sleeves flutter behind her and she laughs softly. 

“In a good mood this morning?” Faramir joins her looking over the city.

“It’s a good morning,” she says, still smiling.

“Indeed it is.”

They stand in silence for a while and watch the world turn. The bakers bring out their breads and the smell wafts upwards until they retreat back inside and the florists have their run of the streets and the fragrance of elanor flowers fills the air. Faramir sneezes; he does every morning when he sniffs too deeply at the flowers. 

“Why don’t you head inside when the florists come out?”

“I like the smell,” he shrugs. Something in the brilliant displays is worth it.

Eowyn laughs again. She’s beginning to get used to the sound of it, a far cry from the derisive laughter of many of the Rohirrim or the snide crow of Wormtongue or the wild howls of warriors fighting. They all seem so distant now. Part of her still lives in Rohan and always will, but she isn’t bitter about being separated from it. She visits Eomer and Lothiriel frequently, but sometimes she sneaks back alone just to roam the fields as a girl once more. She’s happy there, but she never feels whole until she returns home to her sunrise balcony with all the possibilities of a new day.

* * *

Eowyn knows when the sun is halfway to its peak by the length of her shadow stretching before her as she runs down the streets to the house of healing. She still has so much to learn and she _loves_ it. The feel of her blade plunged up to the hilt into the Witch-King pales before the satisfaction of seeing her patients healed and going about their lives again. She waves to the other apprentices as she heads towards the garden behind the building to check on some herbs she’s been tending.

The garden is a different kind of loud from the rest of the house of healing. Bees buzz between the flowering varieties as hummingbirds and butterflies flit around. They fill the air with their chatter. The noises of humans and their mortality are muted here, as if the plants are looking at them and saying _we live for days: you may not live forever, but what’s the difference?_ It always amazes Eowyn how much the plants have to say. They speak in spotted leaves, in flowers facing the east, in stalks intertwining and pushing each other upwards. 

Her shadow lengthens and shortens but she doesn’t see it, her focus zoomed in on the herbs and vines growing in a spectacularly organized chaos. There is no horizon in this rectangular forest of the miniature and time passes at its own pace. Eowyn doesn’t have to think here. She lets her hands take control as she snips leaves and gathers samples for the other healers. One day she will be the one making and applying these poultices, but even if she were looking, that day would still be far out of sight.

* * *

Before sunset there is a lull in which everything agrees to breathe and move more slowly. This is when Eowyn walks the city aimlessly. She likes the alleyways, likes not being able to see more than a hundred paces ahead of her. It’s a kind of freedom to not know your location and not care. She has all the time in the world to get lost and found and lost again, but she still always makes her way back home before the glow fades and time resumes. 

The cobblestones are golden and rose colored again and Eowyn’s feet know where they are going without being told. Her eyes pick out fleeting beauties in the tangible sunlight. It finds a way to fill every crack of the city before sunset like it’s reminding Emyn Arnen of the certainty of tomorrow. The sun will rise again and light will return. Now that Eowyn notices this every single day, she finds herself looking forward to this part of her day. The first time she saw a tree’s leaves become gilded, she worried that she would never see such beauty again and kept her head down the next night, hurrying along her journey. But even with her eyes averted, the light of the sun filled her vision until she was forced to reckon with the inherent grace of a world in which nothing is important and everything is marvelous.

Tonight, like every night, her footsteps land soft as they carry her home. She looks up and shields her face with her hand to see Faramir’s silhouette waiting for her. He will still be there when the sun has set and he cannot be seen from the streets, if she is still down there among them. He is as certain as the sunset.

* * *

They have eaten and spoken of the day’s adventures, but the day is not over. The sun may have set and the stores may have closed, but the city is not completely devoid of light. There are the little lights of lanterns down below and the littler still lights of the stars shining above casting a silver glow on everything under their dominion. 

When it is night, the past does not seem so distant and things do not seem so different.

Still.

The war is won and Eowyn is not healed yet, not quite, but she’s getting there. The sky is so deep and full of stars and Eowyn stops to look up and stare at it. She’s always been looking over the horizon, never even thought to look above it. 

“It looks like _forever_ ,” she whispers to Faramir. There’s no one around and she’s not ashamed of her voice, not anymore, but sometimes words are too big for the world and need to be kept just between the two of them. 

“It is,” Faramir says. “It is forever.”

She turns her head to look up at him; he’s already looking down at her. She could get used to forever, if it means this.


End file.
